Sometimes
by Corazie
Summary: Sometimes life can be difficult. We all have our problems. But you can't just wallow in them, you have to wake up... And so Emily wakes up. But she still has her problems. And her memories.
1. One

For the moment I have no Beta-Reader, so if you spot any errors please do tell me in a review and I'll sort it asap. Why are there no active Beta's who had written for Skins themselves?

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><p>The petite red-head was sat on the faded blue couch-bed in the small living-room-cum-bedroom of the studio flat and surveyed the mess around her. She'd woken up this morning and struggled to find clean underwear, nevermind clean clothes. And when she'd squeezed herself into the tiny kitchenette to make herself some tea there had been no tea bags, no milk, only empty bottles and cans and over-flowing ash trays. It was like she'd been asleep and oblivious to all around her for the past few weeks, letting the filth grow and multiply in the tiny flat. As she drank hot water from a barely-clean mug that she had found at the back of a cupboard, Emily decided that something had to be done.<p>

Emily slowly emptied the pungent sink, removing mouldy plates and mugs and glasses and cutlery one-by-one, retching and gagging at the stench. She unclogged the sink with her hand, emptying the slimy muck into a plastic carrier-bag that she had hung on the handle of a cupboard door. She ran the hot tap and rinsed the sink, waiting for the water to turn her hand red and for steam to start rising before putting in the plug and squeezing in the cheap washing up liquid. She leaned over and opened the small window to try and get the smell of rotting food and cheap washing up liquid out of the cramped space, and then she started. By the time she placed the last clean fork on to the drying rack her feet, back and arms were aching, her eyes were sore, and her hands were red and itchy.

"Fuck it." She spoke loud into the empty room, more to the mess than herself, and picked her way back into the main room, back over to the faded blue sofa-bed, where she threw herself down and sighed. She picked up empty bottles of cider and threw them across the room towards the kitchen, watching them pile up slowly. Then her hand found the cold glass of a nearly empty vodka bottle. Emily went back to the kitchen, ploughing through the green and blue plastic bottles in the doorway, and grabbed a freshly cleaned glass.

Back on the blue sofa, she upended the vodka bottle, half filling the glass between her knees. She needed a drink to help her get through the mess all around her. The glass still held between her jean covered knees she rooted around on the floor and found a bottle of irn-bru. It was mostly flat and warm, but it'd do as a mixer. She sat for a while in the silence of the small flat, sipping the strong drink slowly. As she felt the buzz of alcohol start to flow through her veins she stood up and placed the glass on the coffee table. She started filling an empty carrier bag with empty plastic bottles before making the first of many trips down to the bins, deciding to do her bit for the world and recycle. After the seventh trip her bin was full.

"Ah well..." She emptied the bag into her neighbour's bin. "It's collection day tomorrow anyway."

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><p>Very short, I know. But this is just a taster, just me trying something out. What do you think?<p> 


	2. Two

I still have no Beta-Reader, so if you spot any errors please do tell me in a review and I'll sort it asap.

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><p>The bins were full now, but the flat was nowhere near tidy. Emily hadn't even finished the main room. She picked up her orange drink and down the rest of it, gasping at the strength. She needed clean clothes, the sleeves of her long top were grey at the wrists and she could see more stains than ever on her jeans. There was no washing machine in the flat and she had only a tenner or so in her purse. Enough for another bottle of vodka and a packet of cigarettes, with enough left over for a few loads at the laundrette on the corner. It would have to do.<p>

Emily walked to the dresser against the far wall, a bin liner in her right hand, a grim expression on her face. She needed another drink and a cigarette. She bent down to the floor and grabbed bras and knickers, thongs and socks. If she had clean underwear, she figured, the rest would follow. With a bin bag half full of undergarments, she moved on to shirts and dresses, shorts and skirts, jeans and hoodies. When the bag was full she tied the top in a neat knot and dragged the back of her hand across her forehead, wiping away the slight dampness. Her mouth was dry, her tongue sticking to the top of her mouth, and she felt sick. Emily kicked her way through the piles of empty bottles and take-away containers still littering the floor and pushed her feet into a pair of scruffy silver Doc Martens. The pair of scruffy silver Doc Martens that Naomi had spray-painted for her two years ago before she went to university. The pair of scruffy silver Doc Martens that had once been pristine and perfect, like their relationship.

She sighed and checked her pockets, making sure she had her money and her keys and her phone, even though it barely rang nowadays. She hitched the black bin-liner over her shoulder, opened the door, and stepped out, slamming it hard behind her. Her feet hit each step violently on the way down the stairs, each footfall echoing around the cold stairwell, the sound bouncing back from the cracked linoleum tiles on the floor and the solid dirty white doors. At the bottom Emily pushed open the entrance door with its broken lock and handle, letting it close itself with its weight. She turned left and walked down the hill, leaving the cramped flats behind as she passed an old Victorian terrace with crumbling brickwork and small concrete yards at the back. At the bottom of the hill, just before the main road, she turned into the laundrette's and threw the bag from her shoulder onto the bench that sat in the middle of the room, running the length of the pale yellow space.

Brown eyes scanned the instructions before small soft hands ripped open the black plastic and divided up the clothes. Three separate piles formed; underwear, colours, and darks. The three separate loads were dumped unceremoniously into three separate drums, three separate doors were banged closed and coins were inserted into three separate slots, sending the huge noisy machines to their programs. Water gushed and drums turned and bubbled formed. Emily was mesmerised for a while, watching the three spinning circles before her. Then she became aware of her dry mouth and shaking hands and pounding head and turned away. It would take at least an hour. She grabbed the torn plastic bag and dumped it in the bin by the door as she left, crossing the main road and entering a small off-license.

The florescent yellow lights on the ceiling buzzed, making Emliy's head pound all the more. She walked to the back of the small shop, to the alcohol isle. Her eyes caught a sign, an offer on some cheap brand of cider.

**Buy1 Get 2 Free**

It was too good to miss. Her hands closed around three of the two litre bottles and she pulled them into her arms, carrying one almost like a baby, nursing it against her chest. She carried them to the till and dumped the bottles on the counter.

"That's £2.49." The masculine voice growled from behind the chipped blue counter, placing the bottles into cheap stripey carrier bags that reeked of polythene.

"Twenty Richmond Superking Menthol too," Emily handed over the money and grabbed the two carrier bags, collecting her change and cigarettes and shoving them into her pockets. "Cheers."

She pushed the door open, crossed the road and made her way back up the hill. With each step her mouth got drier, her hands shook more, and her head pounded fiercely. Once she was at the bottom of the stairwell she put the bags down, pulled out a bottle and took three huge gulps of the bitter dry cider, warm in the bottle. Already she felt better. She put the bottle back in it's blue and white carrier bag and heaved them up the two flights of stairs. At her door she put the bags down again and fished in her pocket for the key, jabbing it into the lock and turning. She nudged the door open with her knee as she picked the bags up and brought them into the flat, dumping them on the messy blue couch. She grabbed the glass that had held her vodka and Irn-Bru just an hour before and filled it to the brim with cider, which she raised to her rose-bud lips and greedily swallowed in seconds. With a sigh of relief she poured another glass and savoured it for all of ten minutes, before pouring a third and making her way back to the small kitchen.

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><p>Ok, so a chapter about washing clothes. But was it a good chapter about washing clothes? Much longer than the last one.<p> 


	3. Three

I _still_ have no Beta-Reader, so if you spot any errors please do tell me in a review and I'll sort it asap. Thanks for pointing out my small errors in the last chapter!

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><p>Emily put her brimming glass on the food stained counter and knelt down to open the fridge. She promptly reeled back on to her heels. The stench was almost overwhelming. She stood, the fridge still open, and kicked the kitchen door closed to contain the foul smell or rotting food. She cleared the windowsill to let the air circulate better and filled the kettle, switching it on with a flick of her finger. As she waited for the kettle to boil she delved under the sink, removing an old discoloured basin and half empty containers of cleaning products from the dusty base. The kettle was still slowly heating the water so Emily put her left hand over her mouth and nose and pulled item in various stages of decay from the fridge with her right, dumping them in a carrier bag. How she hadn't realised the smell this morning was beyond her.<p>

When the fridge was empty Emily drank the full glass of cider. _To steady my heaving stomach_, she told her self. Then she set to work with the cleaning products, spraying and scrubbing. It was hard work and a sticky sweat started to creep over her skin, and when the petite red head sat back and saw that the fridge was still grimy and stained her eyes started to fill with tears. She stood up and filled the basin with the now boiled water from the kettle and sat the it on the bottom shelf of the fridge, closing the door at last. She sighed and ran her red hand through her hair, finding it slightly greasy. She pulled her phone from her pocket and saw that she still had ten minutes before she would have to leave to get her laundry. And she had no where to put her clean clothes while they dried.

With a frustrated growl Emily stood and stomped into the bathroom, almost walking into the sink in front of her. She grabbed armfuls of clothes and towels and threw them into the main room, her body shaking with frustration. She couldn't do anything right, she'd never been able to do anything right. Even with Naomi she'd managed to thoroughly fuck things up. When all that was left on the floor was a few odd socks, bare toilet roll tubes and empty shampoo bottles she climbed up onto the side of the small bath, and swaying precariously in her inebriated state unhooked the shower curtain. _There_, she thought, _that'll do_.

Emily walked out of the bathroom and picked up the open cider bottle, draining the remainder of the warm, fizzy liquid in five greedily guzzles, drips escaping from the corner of her mouth to be caught by her fingers and tongue once she put the bottle down. She grabbed a new bin liner and balled it into her pocket, making sure that she had her keys and phone once more before leaving the flat, a cigarette already lit in her mouth, a second stuck behind her right ear for the return journey. She stomped down the stairs again, pushed past the entrance door again, and stumbled down the hill. Her steps were clumsy and she swayed slightly, back and forth, with each step.

Lost in her own tipsy world, bringing the cigarette back to her mouth after each deep draw and exhale, Emily almost walked straight onto the road. The roar of a bus passing on the other side brought her back to the present and she sucked quickly at the stub of the cigarette, not wanting to waste any of the precious lungfuls of smoke. When it was so low it burnt her fingers, she dropped the end and ground it into the grey path with her heel, almost falling and the world suddenly spun with the rush of nicotine in her system. In the laundrette she quickly filled the black plastic sack with her damp clothes and tied it, flinging it over her shoulder and feeling like a nineteenth century maid. She was in the pale yellow interior for less than five minutes before she stepped back outside and plucked the menthol cigarette from behind her ear. She fished in her pockets for her lighter.

"Shit! Oh for fuck's sake." She spoke out loud in frustration and anger, the cigarette still between her lips and slightly muffling her words, as she realised she had left it on the coffee table.

"Can I help?" A masculine hand was in front of her, offering a glowing yellow flame.

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><p>Do you know how depressing it is to have to many +Alerts and so many thousands of hits but so few reviews? :( I'm losing faith in my writing skills, it took me so much longer to write this one, even though it's so short.<p> 


	4. Four

I _still_ have no Beta-Reader! But _still_ I continue. Proud? Only your reviews keep me going.

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><p>"Yeah, thanks." Emily leant forawrds and lit the cigarette, sighing as she exhaled, the smoke in her lungs calming her. When she no longer felt overwhelmed by her self directed frustration she looked at her saviour.<p>

And almost dropped her cigarette, choking. The choking turned into a hacking cough. "Cook.." she croaked out.

"That's right, Ems. Someone had to find you." He patted her back as she gasped for breath, a triumphant smirk plastered across his face.

She straightened, Cook's hand still on her back before she shrugged him off. She was dizzy and irritated. She didn't want to be found. "Listen, Cook, go away." She stared past him, past his self-satisfied smirk, up the hill towards the flat.

"No chance of that, little lady. You left everyone in quite a mess when you left." His hand crept to her shoulder and his hand closed around it like a claw. Emily sighed, resigned to the fact that he wouldn't let go without a fight and that she wasn't up to fighting. Not in her current state of mind or body.

"Ok, Cook, fine. But can I get this back?" She hitched the bag onto her shoulder again, having let it slump to the floor when she coughed. Cook looked over Emily, seeing her shake and sway, smelling the alcohol mingled with smoke on her breath, and let his hand fall, freeing her. She wouldn't be able to shake him loose anyway.

"So, Emsy, is there a shop round here?" Emily pointed behind Cook, across the road. "Mint."

Emily gasped as Cook ran straight into the road, dodging the traffic on both sides. Horns blared and drivers shouted insults from open windows and made rude gestures from behind the glass of closed ones. She was still standing in shock at his actions when Cook returned, heavy carrier bags weighed down with clinking glass bottles in each hand.

"Lead the way then, little lady." Cook bowed with a flourish, extending his right arm and the striped bag forward.

Emily started up the hill, her headache returning with each step she took, pounding with each footfall, Cook just a few paces behind. At the top of the hill she turned into the entrance and pushed the door open with her left shoulder, using her foot to prop it open for the stocky young man behind her. His nose wrinkled in disgust at the state of the place behind Emily's back as she led the way up the stairs. Both of them were out of breath as they reached the second floor and Emily opened the door to the flat, the small girl stepping back to let her guest enter first.

"Jesus Christ, Emily..." Cook was looking around the small squalid flat, the bottles and old take-away cartons piled against the walls reminding him briefly of dirty snow drifts next to roads and against walls in winter. He stepped towards the couch Emily gestured to, dodging suspiciously mouldy looking foil containers and pizza boxes.

"I'll be back in a minute, Cook. I have to hang these up. Get yourself a glass, there are some clean ones in the kitchen." Emily was miserable, each word threatened to send the hot tears gathering in her eyes past her long lashes and down cheeks scalding red with embarrassment. Emily imagined that the tears would evaporate with the heat of her cheeks. All she could feel as she closed herself in the small bathroom was shame. Shame that she had been found and shame that she had been caught in such a position. She draped her clothes over the shower-curtain rail, over the side of the bath, on the small radiator and over the sink. There wasn't enough room, but she'd managed to get about half of it hung up. She opened the tiny window to let some air in, the better to dry everything. Then she sank down onto the toilet seat and took some deep breaths. _Breathe_. She spotted something small and bright yellow on the floor and reached down. _Perfect_. A lighter. She sat back up, tugged he cigarette packet from her pocket and lit up, exhaling as slowly as she could but inhaling in an almost frenzied manor. She stood up, lifted the toilet lid, and flicked the ash into the bowl, dropping the butt after two minutes and hearing it hiss for half a second before drowning, sinking to the bottom of the clear water.

She felt composed now. She tucked a strand of neglected red hair behind her ear and returned to the living-room where Cook was sat, a cigarette in one hand, a pint glass filled with gin and a dash of tonic in the other. Emily could smell the gin from the bathroom door. She raised an eyebrow. "Gin?" she asked.

"Sure thing, Emsy-poo. Living the good life me. You should try it. It's not hard to make money." He raised his glass to her and downed the pint, gulp after huge gulp. Emily felt vaguely sick, imagining the tang of gin at the back of her throat.

"Right. Well." She didn't know what to say so stalled, opening her second bottle of cider that day and blowing the dust from the bottom of the glass she had used earlier before refilling it.

"Chin chin, little lady." Cook had already refilled his glass, his first bottle of gin nearly empty, and raised it again to her. This time she raised hers too and they clinked the cheap glasses together. "Looks like I have some catching up to do," he grinned as cider and gin sloshed over the rims, dropping into the glasses, onto their hands, and dripping to the messy carpet. "Fancy a tab?" He offered her one from his own packet and Emily recognised the rare gift, not daring to refuse even though she preferred menthol cigarettes.

"Ta." She could still feel her last cigarette, but what the hell. Another wouldn't do any harm. She resigned herself to the evening and the night that would follow.

"How much drink you got left?" Cook asked. Emily knew that at some point she would run out of alcohol. "I've got plenty for the both of us mind." Cook seemed to have that covered.

"Just one more bottle after this. Maybe some lasts in a few bottles..." She waved her arm vaguely in the direction of one of the bigger piles of glass bottles.

"Mint. Let's have ourselves a proper little party and you can tell Cookie why you upped and left." Emily sighed and downed her drink. She would need oblivion for this.

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><p>Thanks for the AWESOME reviews! Not my strongest chapter, but a few of you seemed to be craving dialogue. It was so so difficult to write, I'm not sure I should have introduced Cook yet.<p> 


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